“The devil!” exclaimed the little gentleman, as soon as his utter amazement allowed him to take breath. A long pause ensued, during which he twice inflated his cheeks to their utmost tension, and puffed the air forth with a prolonged whistle of desolate wonder. Recollecting himself, however, he hastily arose, wished Sir Richard good-day, and walked down stairs, and out of the house, all the way muttering, “God bless my body and soul — a thousand pounds a year — the devil — can it be? — body o’ me — refuse a thousand a year — what the deuce is he looking for?” — and such other ejaculations; stamping all the while emphatically upon every stair as he descended, to give vent to his indignation, as well as impressiveness to his remarks.
Something like a smile for a moment lit up the withered features of the old baronet; he leaned back luxuriously upon his sofa, and while he listened with delighted attention to the stormy descent of his visitor, he administered to its proper receptacle, with prolonged relish, two several pinches of rappee.
“So, so,” murmured he, complacently, “I suspect I have seen the last of honest Mr. Audley — a little surprised and a little angry he does appear to be — dear me! — he stamps fearfully — what a very strange creature it is.”
Having made this reflection, Sir Richard continued to listen pleasantly until the sounds were lost in the distance; he then rang a small hand-bell which lay upon the table, and a servant entered.
“Tell Mistress Mary,” said the baronet, “that I shall not want her just now, and desire Mr. Henry to come hither instantly — begone, sirrah.”
The servant disappeared, and in a few moments young Ashwoode, looking unusually pale and haggard, and dressed in a morning suit, entered the chamber. Having saluted his father with the formality which the usages of the time prescribed, and having surveyed himself for a moment at the large mirror which stood in the room, and having adjusted thereat the tie of his lace cravat, he inquired, —
“Pray, sir, who was that piece of ‘too, too solid flesh’ that passed me scarce a minute since upon the stairs, pounding all the way with the emphasis of a battering ram? As far as I could judge, the thing had just been discharged from your room.”
“You have happened, for once in your life, to talk with relation to the subject to which I would call your attention,” said Sir Richard. “The person whom you describe with your wonted facetiousness, has just been talking with me; his name is Audley; I never saw him till this morning, and he came coolly to make proposals, in young O’Connor’s name, for your sister’s hand, promising to settle some scurvy chateaux, heaven knows where, upon the happy pair.”
“Well, sir, and what followed?” asked the young man.
“Why simply, sir,” replied his father, “that I gave him the answer which sent him stamping down stairs, as you saw him. I laughed in his face, and desired him to go about his business.”
“Very good, indeed, sir,” observed young Ashwoode.
“There is no occasion for commentary, sir,” continued Sir Richard. “Attend to what I have to say: a nobleman of large fortune has requested my permission to make his suit to your sister — that I have, of course, granted; he will arrive here tomorrow, to make a stay of some days. I am resolved the thing shall be concluded. I ought to mention that the nobleman in question is Lord Aspenly.”
The young man looked for a moment or two the very impersonation of astonishment, and then, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
“Either be silent, sir, or this moment quit the room,” said Sir Richard, in a tone which few would have liked to disobey— “how dare you — you — you insolent, dependent coxcomb — how dare you, sir, treat me with this audacious disrespect?”
The young man hastened to avert the storm, whose violence he had more than once bitterly felt, by a timely submission.
“I assure you, sir, nothing was further from my intention than to offend you,” said he— “I am fully alive — as a man of the world, I could not be otherwise — to the immense advantages of the connection; but Lord Aspenly I have known so long, and always looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor, that on hearing his name thus suddenly, something of incongruity, and — and — and I don’t exactly know what — struck me so very forcibly, that I involuntarily and very thoughtlessly began to laugh. I assure you, sir, I regret it very much, if it has offended you.”
“You are a weak fool, sir, I am afraid,” replied his father, shortly: “but that conviction has not come upon me by surprise; you can, however, be of some use in this matter, and I am determined you shall be. Now, sir, mark me: I suspect that this young fellow — this O’Connor, is not so indifferent to Mary as he should be to a daughter of mine, and it is more than possible that he may endeavour to maintain his interest in her affections, imaginary or real, by writing letters, sending messages, and such manœuvring. Now, you must call upon the young man, wherever he is to be found, and either procure from him a distinct pledge to the effect that he will think no more of her (the young fellow has a sense of honour, and I would rely upon his promise), or else you must have him out — in short, make him fight you — you attend, sir — if you get hurt, we can easily make the country too hot to hold him; and if, on the other hand, you poke him through the body, there’s an end of the whole difficulty. This step, sir, you must take — you understand me — I am very much in earnest.”
This was delivered with a cold deliberateness, which young Ashwoode well understood, when his father used it to imply a fixity of purpose, such as brooked no question, and halted at no obstacle.
“Sir,” replied Henry Ashwoode, after an embarrassed pause of a few minutes, “you are not aware of one particular connected with last night’s affray — you have heard that poor Darby, who rode with me, was actually brained, and that I escaped a like fate by the interposition of one who, at his own personal risk, saved my life — that one was the very Edmond O’Connor of whom we speak.”
“What you allude to,” observed Sir Richard, with very edifying coolness, “is, no doubt, very shocking and very horrible. I regret the destruction of the man, although I neither saw nor knew much about him; and for your eminently providential escape, I trust I am fully as thankful as I ought to be; and now, granting all you have said to be perfectly accurate — which I take it to be — what conclusion do you wish me to draw from it?”
“Why, sir, without pretending to any very extraordinary proclivity to gratitude,” replied the young man— “for O’Connor told me plainly that he did not expect any — I must consider what the world will say, if I return what it will be pleased to regard as an obligation, by challenging the person who conferred it.”
“Good, sir — good,” said the baronet, calmly: and gazing upon the ceiling with elevated eyebrows and a bitter smile, he added, reflectively, “he’s afraid — afraid — afraid — ay, afraid — afraid.”
“You wrong me very much, sir,” rejoined young Ashwoode, “if you imagine that fear has anything to do with my reluctance to act as you would have me; and no less do you wrong me, if you think I would allow any schoolboy sentimentalism to stand in the way of my family’s interests. My real objection to the thing is this — first, that I cannot see any satisfactory answer to the question, What will the world say of my conduct, in case I force a duel upon him the day after he has saved my life? — and again, I think it inevitably damages any young woman in the matrimonial market, to have low duels fought about her.”
Sir Richard screwed his eyebrows reflectively, and remained silent.
“But at the same time, sir,” continued his son, “I see as clearly as you could wish me to do, the importance, under present circumstances — or rather the absolute necessity — of putting a stop to O’Connor’s suit; and, in short, to all communication between him and my sister, and I will undertake to do this effectually.”
“And how, sir, pray?” inquired the baronet.
“I shall, as a matter of course, wait upon the young man,” replied Henry Ashwoode— “his services of last night dema
nd that I should do so. I will explain to him, in a friendly way, the hopelessness of his suit. I should not hesitate either to throw a little colouring of my own over the matter. If I can induce O’Connor once to regard me as his friend — and after all, it is but the part of a friend to put a stop to this foolish affair — I will stake my existence that the matter shall be broken off for ever and a day. If, however, the young fellow turn out foolish and pig-headed, I can easily pick a quarrel with him upon some other subject, and get him out of the way as you propose; but without mixing up my sister’s name in the dispute, or giving occasion for gossip. However, I half suspect that it will require neither crafty stratagem nor shrewd blows to bring this absurd business to an end. I daresay the parties are beginning to tire heartily of waiting, and perhaps a little even of one another; and, for my part, I really do not know that the girl ever cared for him, or gave him the smallest encouragement.”
“But I know that she did,” replied Sir Richard. “Carey has shown me letters from her to him, and from him to her, not six months since. Carey is a very useful woman, and may do us important service. I did not choose to mention that I had seen these letters; but I sounded Mary somewhat sternly, and left her with a caution which I think must have produced a salutary effect — in short, I told her plainly, that if I had reason to suspect any correspondence or understanding between her and O’Connor, I should not scruple to resort to the sternest and most rigorous interposition of parental authority, to put an end to it peremptorily. I confess, however, that I have misgivings about this. I regard it as a very serious obstacle — one, however, which, so sure as I live, I will entirely annihilate.”
There was a pause for a little while, and Sir Richard continued, —
“There is a good deal of sense in what you have suggested. We will talk it over and arrange operations systematically this evening. I presume you intend calling upon the fellow to-day; it might not be amiss if you had him to dine with you once or twice in town: you must get up a kind of confidential acquaintance with him, a thing which you can easily terminate, as soon as its object is answered. He is, I believe, what they call a frank, honest sort of fellow, and is, of course, very easily led; and — and, in short — made a fool of: as for the girl, I think I know something of the sex, and very few of them are so romantic as not to understand the value of a title and ten thousand a year! Depend upon it, in spite of all her sighs, and vapours, and romance, the girl will be dazzled so effectually before three weeks, as to be blind to every other object in the world; but if not, and should she dare to oppose my wishes, I’ll make her cross-grained folly more terrible to her than she dreams of — but she knows me too well — she dares not.”
Both parties remained silent and abstracted for a time, and then Sir Richard, turning sharply to his son, exclaimed, with his usual tart manner, —
“And now, sir, I must admit that I am a good deal tired of your very agreeable company. Go about your business, if you please, and be in this room this evening at halfpast six o’clock. You had better not forget to be punctual; and, for the present, get out of my sight.”
With this very affectionate leavetaking, Sir Richard put an end to the family consultation, and the young man, relieved of the presence of the only person on earth whom he really feared, gladly closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER XI.
THE OLD BEECH-TREE WALK AND THE IVY-GROWN GATEWAY — THE TRYSTE AND TUE CRUTCH-HANDLED CANE.
In the snug old “Cock and Anchor,” the morning after the exciting scenes in which O’Connor had taken so active a part, that gentleman was pacing the floor of his sitting-room in no small agitation. On the result of that interview, which he had resolved no longer to postpone, depended his happiness for years — it might be for life. Again and again he applied himself to the task of arranging clearly and concisely, and withal adroitly and with tact, the substance of what he had to say to Sir Richard Ashwoode. But, spite of all, his mind would wander to the pleasant hours he had passed with Mary Ashwoode in the quiet green wood and by the dark well’s side, and through the mossgrown rocks, and by the chiming current of the wayward brook, long before the cold and worldly had suspected and repulsed that love which he knew could never die but when his heart had ceased to beat for ever. Again would he, banishing with a stoical effort these unbidden visions of memory, seek to accomplish the important task which he had proposed to himself; but still all in vain. There was she once more — there was the pale, pensive, lovely face — there the long, dark, silken tresses — there the deep, beautiful eyes — and there the smile — the artless, melancholy, enchanting smile.
“It boots not trying,” exclaimed O’Connor. “I cannot collect my thoughts; and yet what use in conning over the order and the words of what, after all, will be judged merely by its meaning? Perhaps it is better that I should yield myself wholly up to the impulse of the moment, and so speak but the more directly and the more boldly. No; even in such a cause I will not accommodate myself to his cramp and crooked habits of thought and feeling. If I let him know all, it matters little how he learns it.”
As O’Connor finished this sentence, his meditations were dispelled by certain sounds, which issued from the passage leading to his room.
“A young man,” exclaimed a voice, interrupted by a good deal of puffing and blowing, probably caused by the steep ascent, “and a good-looking, eh? — (puff) — dark eyes, eh? — (puff, puff) — black hair and straight nose, eh? — (puff, puff) — long-limbed, tall, eh? — (puff).”
The answers to these interrogatories, whatever they may have been, were, where O’Connor stood, wholly inaudible; but the cross-examination was accompanied throughout by a stout, firm, stumping tread upon the old floor, which, along with the increasing clearness with which the noise made its way to O’Connor’s door, sufficiently indicated that the speaker was approaching. The accents were familiar to him. He ran to his door, opened it; and in an instant Hugh Audley, Esquire, very hot and very much out of breath, pitched himself, with a good deal of precision, shoulders foremost, against the pit of the young man’s stomach, and, embracing him a little above the hips, hugged him for some time in silence, swaying him to and fro with extraordinary energy, as if preparatory to tripping him up, and taking him off his feet altogether — then giving him a shove straight from him, and holding him at arm’s length, he looked with brimful eyes, and a countenance beaming with delight, full in O’Connor’s face.
“Confound the dog, how well he looks,” exclaimed the old gentleman, vehemently— “devilish well, curse him!” and he gave O’Connor a shove with his knuckles, and succeeded in staggering himself— “never saw you look better in my life, nor anyone else for that matter; and how is every inch of you, and what have you been doing with yourself? Come, you young dog, account for yourself.”
O’Connor had now, for the first time, an opportunity of bidding the kind old gentleman welcome, which he did to the full as cordially, if not so boisterously.
“Let me sit down and rest myself: I must take breath for a minute,” exclaimed the old gentleman. “Give me a chair, you undutiful rascal. What a devil of a staircase that is, to be sure. Well, and what do you intend doing with yourself to-day?”
“To say the truth,” said the young man, while a swarthier glow crossed his dark features. “I was just about to start for Morley Court, to see Sir Richard Ashwoode.”
“About his daughter, I take it?” inquired the old gentleman.
“Just so, sir,” replied the younger man.
“Then you may spare yourself the pains,” rejoined the old gentleman, briskly. “You are better at home. You have been forestalled.”
“What — how, sir? What do you mean?” asked O’Connor, in great perplexity and alarm.
“Just what I say, my boy. You have been forestalled.”
“By whom, sir?”
“By me.”
“By you?”
“Ay.”
The old gentleman screwed his brows and pursed up his mo
uth until it became a Gordian involution of knots and wrinkles, threw a fierce and determined expression into his eyes, and wagged his head slightly from side to side — looking altogether very like a “Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.” At length he said, —
“I’m an old fellow, and ought to know something by this time — think I do, for that matter; and I say deliberately — cut the whole concern and blow them all.”
Having thus delivered himself, the old gentleman resumed his sternest expression of countenance, and continued in silence to wag his head from time to time with an air of infinite defiance, leaving his young companion, if possible, more perplexed and bewildered than ever.
“And have you, then, seen Sir Richard Ashwoode?” inquired O’Connor.
“Have I seen him?” rejoined the old gentleman. “To be sure I have. The moment the boat touched the quay, and I fairly felt terra firma, I drove to the ‘Fox in Breeches,’ and donned a handsome suit” — (here the gentleman glanced cursorily at his bottle-green habiliments)— “I ordered a hack-coach — got safely to Morley Court — saw Sir Richard, laid up with the gout, looking just like an old, dried-up, cross-grained monkey. There was, of course, a long explanation, and all that sort of thing — a good deal of tact and diplomacy on my side, doubling about, neat fencing, and circumbendibus; but all would not do — an infernal smash. Sir Richard was all but downright uncivil — would not hear of it — said plump and plain he would never consent. The fact is, he’s a sour, hard, insolent old scoundrel, and a bitter pill; and I congratulate you heartily on having escaped all connection with him and his. Don’t look so down in the mouth about the matter; there’s as good fish in the sea as ever was caught; and if the young woman is half such a shrew as her father is a tartar, you have had an escape to be thankful for the longest day you live.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 9
